OnePlus 2

OnePlus 2 Review – OnePlus started with a premise to offer the world a flagship killer. In 2014, the company announced its first smartphone, the OnePlus One (OPO) at an aggressive price. What was interesting about the phone was that it offered more bang for the buck. Fast-forward to this year, the Chinese mobile startup has launched the second iteration of its flagship. Now that the device is out, does it hold the candle against the competition? Let’s find out.

REFINED DESIGN

We believe there is no perfect design for a smartphone; it’s just placing all things in their right places and making it as intuitive as possible. The biggest change in terms of design on the OnePlus 2 over OPO is the removable back cover. This makes it easier for consumers to change the back panel of their choice. OnePlus as a company is also banking on the same, which is why they’re offering four back panels — Bamboo, Rosewood, Black Apricot and Kevlar as optional back cover options in addition to the stock Sandstone Black.

Glossy Front – Contrary to the Sandstone finish, front is a glossy one

The decision to build an aluminium-and-magnesium crafted frame for the new device is a good one as it gives the phone a stylish look and durability. We didn’t feel the same way with the OnePlus One. Another interesting addition is the Alert Slider. It allows users to change the profiles between All Notifications, Priority Interruptions and No Interruptions.

Talking about the buttons and ports, the right edge houses the volume rocker keys and power button. The loudspeakers are placed on the bottom edge whereas the back features a camera module.

Moving onto the display, there’s no difference in size and PPI (Pixel Per Inch) count between the previous and new flagship device from OnePlus. Both offer a 5.5-inch 1080p display with a 401 PPI count. Though, what is improved on the display is that it is bright and at 600 nits, the device is one of the brightest ones in the market. The display quality is excellent when it comes to legibility under sunlight, colours and crispness are good and offers a 178-degree viewing angle.

POWER HORSE

OnePlus has stepped up with the performance of this flagship with the Snapdragon 810 chipset, despite the chip being in the news for overheating. OnePlus has integrated the second version of the Snapdragon 810 SoC and although we did face some heating issues while shooting a 4K video, Oneplus 2 manages the heat better.

Combined with the 4GB LP DDR4 RAM, Adreno 430 GPU, the phone gets the much needed performance boost. This is where the combination of CPU, GPU and RAM comes into play on OnePlus 2.

Talking about the benchmark numbers, the device scored around 54,000 points on Antutu and 4,000 on Vellamo. But do the numbers mean that the device is always up to task with high performance? Not exactly. We experienced some issues, like when we switched to the Airplane mode; the device was inoperable for at least five minutes. Again, it might be a software bug, but you shouldn’t expect such trivial issues to crop up when you’re using the same build for almost two weeks.

There is no Cyanogen love for the OnePlus 2 this time but comes with the second version of Oxygen OS. The Oxygen OS 2.0 offers a pure Android stock experience with customisation options on top. For instance, the Oxygen OS 2.0 offers theme options to swapping operation of capacitive buttons. There’s even dark mode that changes the phone’s user interface to grey to make it easier on the eyes.

The OnePlus 2 back houses a 13MP resolution camera aided by a laser autofocus, which helps in faster focusing of an object. The camera quality is great. The aperture remains at f/2.0 with 1.3μm pixels that improves low-light shots.

On the video part, it supports up to 4K recording albeit can record only for 10 minutes. The OnePlus 2 camera also touts OIS but we felt it was not up to the mark.

The front-facing camera is on par with other flagship devices that enables wide-angle selfies with large groups.

OnePlus 2 is also equipped with a fingerprint sensor that doubles up as a home button. The fingerprint sensor works well and we had a success rate of about 80 percent in our tests.

This is company’s first smartphone to sport dual SIM capability that allows users to use two Nano SIMs. Both SIM slots support 4G connectivity.

Though, what’s not interesting from the practical perspective is the USB Type-C standard on a smartphone. Since devices with USB Type-C are very few, you’ll be left high and dry in case you forget the charger.

The battery capacity on the OnePlus 2 has got a jump from OnePlus One’s 3100mAh to 3300mAh but the real usage turned out to be a mixed bag The phone gave us about 13 hours but faced some issues with battery drain, making it drain a good 10 percent within a span of 15 minutes while using the camera app.

And the bummer is that there is no quick charging, even though, Snapdragon 810 supports Quick Charge 2.0.

OnePlus 2 is an upgrade that company deserved, but not what its users were expecting, which is what we feel. They missed out on features like Quick Charging, NFC, and 2K Display, which is currently the norm with all flagship devices from other manufacturers. That said, when it comes to performance and user experience the OnePlus 2 is hard to beat by other flagships, and a good upgrade over the OnePlus One.